A: "Leon gives us a little bit of maturity and toughness that only he can bring. You know he's a great talent. We missed some things about not having him. It's going to be really important to have him (this weekend)."

Q: It seemed that Leon really outperformed the other two tailbacks against Florida. Do you give him more reps this weekend?

A: "Early on, I didn't want to take him out of the game because he just looked like he was ready to go but of course we rotated them. I hope he gets a lot of reps in this game."

Q: Will you shorten the rotation than?

A: "I'd like to. We'll talk about it some with Bill (Sexton). I would really like Leon in there carrying the majority of this load. This is the kind of game that he can excel in. But, like any great back, he's got to have some help up front."

Q: Have you looked at the 1999 game against Virginia Tech to see what some of the good things were that you did offensively?

A: "As a matter of fact, we went back and looked at that thing. And it was an interesting reminder as to how fast that team was back then and these guys are very comparable."

Q: How much do all of the changes on the offensive line impact or dictate what you can or can't do this week?

A: "Offensive line and kind of the relationship they have in there in the game, there's a cohesiveness that when you can keep the unit - they have. There's a communication that goes on in there. Once you start replacing bodies, we're trying to not change everything we do just because we've got a new person in there. It's kind of like our thought going into this season with a new quarterback; we were going to let them do what they can do. We're not trying to shut everything down. We tried to help some of the young linemen in the Florida game. It didn't help us one bit offensively ? the quarterback is still getting hit. You replace that many guys in there you just aren't going to be as good as you were."

Q: You face the No. 1 defense in the country Saturday. With Miami being the only team to have had success against them, how much do you look at the philosophy of the Hurricanes?

A: "Well, I think you have to look?us and Miami are two different teams, first of all. Their emphasis is more on run and ours is more on pass. We'll approach certain things that they did the same in similar ways. But what I think what we've got to do is look at teams that are similar to us and try to find out what they did that was good and take what we've done so far that we think will be good against these guys. You just go with what you've got."

Q: Who have you looked at on tape that may best give you some of those ideas?

A: "Well, if I tell you that, they are going to know who I focused on (laughing). We obviously did a lot of looking at the passing game against them. That's what Daryl (Dickey) and I do. Mark (McHale) spent a lot of time looking at the Miami game and how they affectively ran the ball. What we've done from that point is just trying to mesh our thoughts together on how we want to attack them."

Q: Have you found some cracks that you feel you can take advantage of?

A: "There's not a lot of cracks with Virginia Tech but what's got to happen is there's going to be a few opportunities in this game for something big to happen. You have to make a play when that opportunity (arises). You don't know what four five plays that it's going to be but at some point, you're going to see three opportunities Florida State had to do something offensively and either we do or we don't."

Q: Your dad talked some about rolling Drew Weatherford out of the pocket, is that something you are looking at?

A: "Well, you'd like to move the pocket. We are going to try to move it a little bit for him more than we have in the past. You move it once or twice in a game and you've got different ways to do it but it's not like those guys over there don't know ? they can put a stop to that."

Q: How much man-to-man do they play compared to zone?

A: I think they are probably more zone percentage wise, I think by far. But they play enough man in third-down situations and you'd like to throw that little quick hitch out there but their not going to give you the gimme stuff. They are going to make you work for it. They've got some boundary corners that can really play."